Make sure that the spark is retarded, the gear lever is in neutral, switch on, and other levers in their proper positions before cranking the engine.
When the car has been slowed down to a very low speed for any reason, shift to a lower gear; don’t try to pick up speed on high gear. Don’t shift to a lower gear until the car speed has been reduced sufficiently.
In New York City, traffic traveling north and south has the right of way, therefore when crossing an avenue go slowly and make sure you will not cut off vehicles on the avenue.
When starting the car, allow the clutch pedal to come back until the clutch begins to engage, then keep enough pressure on the pedal to allow it to become fully engaged very gradually. Letting the clutch engage all at once makes the car jump or the engine stall, and observers smile knowingly. In this connection you should listen to the engine and operate the clutch and accelerator so that the engine is not raced or stalled.
CHAPTER XXVI
WHERE EXTRA CAUTION IS NECESSARY
It would seem unnecessary to give caution to the motorist where there is an element of safety involved; it ought to be understood that everyone entrusted with the wheel of a motor car would be interested in his personal safety and in the safety of those in his keeping, and that he would take all ordinary and even extraordinary precautions to keep skin unscratched and bones unbroken and existence preserved. But it is a fact that for a large proportion of motorists there is no such word as “Danger,” and no such word as “Care.” Why is it?
For some reason there is abroad the spirit of “take a chance,” and it has entirely superseded the cautious foresight which was once the American nature. Perhaps it is the changed conditions of our land which is responsible for this. In pioneer days caution was necessary, for one did not know behind what tree or rock lurked death in the form of a savage, and there were wild animals to avoid in the forests, and even along traveled highways; so that to look ahead, to watch for signs of danger, and to approach points of peril with every sense alert, was second nature.
Boys who were brought up to tramp the woods or prairies were alert also, because of hiding snakes and prowling wolves, and because of the need for keeping track of distances and locations to prevent being lost. We are only a generation or two from these things even at the crowded centers of population; but the last two generations which have grown up in the city, and millions who have come from other lands in the same period have not this inbred caution. Men who are in peril daily from one cause and another incident to city life, and “nothing happens,” cannot be expected to get excited about possibilities, which in time become so familiar as to breed contempt.
The man who is in constant fear lest something fall from a tall building upon him, or there be an explosion from beneath, or a crash of trolley, subway, or elevated cars, with a generous complement of fire and flood and gale added, would go crazed if he thought much on these things. Therefore it is hard to get him to think of “safety first.” It is rather “I should worry,” and it actually prolongs life, so long as it is applied to familiar things—it keeps nerve systems from breaking.
This is why it is so hard to get the city driver accustomed to caution in places of real peril. One of the worst of these is driving over railway tracks. Out on the Huckleberry division, where there is but one train a day each way if luck favors the intending passengers, there is not so much danger; but in the vicinity of all the large cities where suburban trains run often and through trains are numerous, it behooves the autoist to acquire speedily a belief in signs. The usual sign at a railroad crossing is a post with two arms in the form of an X to warn highway travelers. It matters not that there is a flagman or gates, a due sense of caution is necessary for the driver of an auto.